Alonso wants Aston Martin to understand surge in Aston Martin performance in Hungary

Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin needs to analyze the differences between its last two performances to understand why it had such surprisingly strong pace in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Aston Martin was uncompetitive in Belgium a week ago but responded in impressive style with both cars qualifying in the top six at the Hungaroring and racing to fifth and seventh. Alonso says the different track characteristics alone do not explain the difference in performance, and emphasized the need for the team to gain an understanding of the improved competitiveness.

“It is a surprise, definitely it is a surprise,” Alonso said. “It's a nice surprise. The good thing is that we were competitive and we were fast. The concerning thing is that we don't know why.

“In a way, we need this week at the factory to analyze exactly what are the differences between Spa and Hungary, what are the differences on the car as well, on the setup, on the aero devices that we were racing with. Obviously, the main theme for us was the front wing that was new this weekend. If that front wing gives us that much of performance, that's very good news, but I think that has to be understood at the moment.”

Alonso says his fifth place behind the two McLarens, George Russell and Charles Leclerc was the optimal result that Aston Martin could have achieved on Sunday, after a strong start led to him running fourth for a spell before being overtaken easily by Lando Norris.

“I think it cannot go any better than this. Obviously, someone told me that the two McLarens were very close to each other at one point – that would be even better, but it didn't happen! But I think we maximized the performance of the car in qualifying and in the race.

“There was not much more to do on our side. The biggest threat was [Max] Verstappen on the two stops, but then he had some traffic and at the end we were a little bit more relaxed.”

Alonso’s surprise was matched by teammate Lance Stroll, who crossed the line two seconds behind sixth-placed Gabriel Bortoleto.

“It was a great day for the team and a solid weekend from start to finish,” Stroll said. “Heading into the summer break with 16 points is a big uplift for us. But we have lots to learn from this weekend because we don't fully understand why we were more competitive here.

“We need to be in a place where we can put the car in that window at more tracks because ultimately, we want to be at this level of competitiveness more consistently.”